The Meadows Foundation, based in the Wilson Historical District in Dallas, is the third-largest private foundation in Texas, with assets of about $850 million. Since its inception in 1948, the foundation has disbursed almost $600 million in grants and direct charitable expenditures to more than 2,000 institutions and agencies across Texas.

Linda Evans, president and CEO of the Meadows Foundation, explains that mental health is a current priority in the organization’s grant-making. Based on a survey of Meadows family members, directors, and former directors, the foundation decided to focus more resources on mental health because it was an area of high interest.

“About one in four suffer from some form of mental illness, yet, unfortunately, folks often don’t talk about it,” says Evans. “We felt compelled to do whatever we can to provide resources to people. The new generation of drugs can really help people, along with counseling.”

This highly respected foundation is also a business, with 42 employees. “We’ve had several employees who’ve had mental-health issues in their families,” says Evans. “This brought home the fact that we need to address the issue inside the organization as well as outside it.”

The Meadows Foundation provides parity in its employees’ insurance coverage of mental and physical illnesses. To Linda Evans, it’s a matter of necessity. “Everyone who suffers from any kind of mental illness needs the resources to get better,” she says. “It keeps employees happier and healthier. It’s better business practice because you’ll have more productive employees. So many go through some kind of depression, yet mental health does not get the same coverage. It’s an absolute crime.”

Professional staff at the Meadows Foundation see the problems caused by the stigma of mental illness in the workplace and across society. And they see an opportunity to address the consequences of that stigma. “All too often, people want to put their head in the sand,” says Evans. “They act as if, if you don’t talk about it, it’s not true. And if you don’t talk about it, you don’t have to fund it. We spend a lot of money curing from the neck down, but not much from the neck up.”

Evans believes that Texas is seeing tremendous problems because of low funding for mental-health services. “The paradox is that it would cost society a lot less to invest more up front,” she says. “We would need fewer jails and fewer shelters. Prevention will cost a lot less, in the long run.”

Evans feels that leaders in business and government must demand that society stop treating mental illnesses as somehow separate and distinct from other physiological ailments. “Medical science is clear,” she says. “Diseases of the brain are like other diseases. To a certain degree, they can be prevented. They can be treated. And people with these illnesses can recover. With the knowledge we have now about these illnesses, people should be ashamed of themselves for claiming any rationale for treating people differently.